Effective Thermal Conductivity of Composite Materials with 3-D Microstructures and Interfacial Thermal Resistance

This article presents a numerical scheme, based on an isoparametric second-order finite-element discretization of the unit cell heat conduction problem, to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of composite materials with general 3-D microstructures and interfacial thermal resistance. Representative numerical results for the effective conductivity of ordered arrays of spheres, prolate ellipsoids of revolution, and finite-length circular cylinders are presented and, when possible, validated against previous analytical predictions. Furthermore, the effective conductivity of a disordered multiparticle cell is calculated, showing that the present computational approach is a valuable tool for understanding the macroscopic thermal behavior of composite materials.